rubykatewriting (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rubykatewriting) wrote2012-03-29 09:36 am
rubykatewriting) wrote2012-03-29 09:36 am
Entry tags:
Fic: The Strong Scent of Evergreen, DerekGirl!Stiles (Teen Wolf) [Part 3/10]
Author: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rubykatewriting
Title: The Strong Scent of Evergreen
Pairing: Derek/Girl!Stiles
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Derek and Stiles start something new. "I am, you know," she whispers against his mouth, and he tilts his head in question. "Yours."
Spoilers/Warnings: Can be found here.
Notes: Title comes from the song "Passenger Seat" by Death Cab for Cutie.
Disclaimer: Not mine. So not mine. No harm intended.
Scott refuses to even acknowledge her. She hasn’t gone more than a couple of days without talking to him since she was five – except for that whole silent treatment she tried out after her father got hit with the car during the parent-teacher night and that lasted all of half a day when she was confronted with him face-to-face (she’s much better being a cold-hearted bitch when she can’t look into puppy-dog brown eyes) – but she’s still so pissed at him. He’s always had this weird sense of responsibility towards her, even when they were kids, and that has benefited her on more than one occasion. She would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge that having a fearless boy completely oblivious to real danger in your corner has it advantages. Now is different and his refusal to see that makes her want to throttle him, more so than usual anyway.
Allison decides to take matters into her own hands after the fourth day. She corners Stiles in the locker room after practice, and Stiles is so physically exhausted she can barely get off the bench let alone run away from Allison’s attempts at mediator. “This has to stop, Stiles.”
“That would require your boyfriend to stop being an immature asshole.” Stiles shrugs. “So.”
“Scott is just worried about you.” Allison’s face crinkles up in concern and she fiddles with the zipper on her jacket. “Derek is the Alpha…”
Stiles glares at her locker, wishing for enough strength to find Scott wherever he is, bring him back here, and slam his head repeatedly in the locker door. “I’m not being taken advantage of here, Allison. Maybe you should pass that along to your boyfriend.”
“You like him?” Allison sounds incredulous but also maybe a tiny bit curious, too. “You actually like Derek?”
“No, I’m doing this out of some weird sense of obligation to the pack,” Stiles bites out sarcastically and Allison blushes. “I know you love Scott, but seriously, he’s wrong about this. He’s wrong about a lot of things but oh my god is he the wrongest he’s ever wronged here.” Stiles can’t help but sigh as she grabs her towel and starts for the showers.
-
Since there’s no need to keep things secret anymore, Stiles gets it into her head that she wants to take Derek out, or him her. She just wants an agreed upon location and that they drive there together. She wants a movie date; she wants normalcy for once. It’s all well and good to ache for something – anything – to happen, but after the last few months she’s had, normal sounds so blissful she could almost cry.
She finds him lounging on her bed after school, reading of all things The Great Gatsby, which reminds her she still has to finish her essay, and she’s cranky and sweaty from soccer practice. Coach Lewis made them run suicides for twenty minutes after Alvarez and Murphy showed up late for the third time in a row; Stiles will never understand why she punishes the whole for the failures of the few. Unless it’s to encourage revenge, because that is certainly number one on Stiles’ to-do list now. “You’re taking me to a movie tonight,” she informs him, throwing her bags at the wall near her desk.
“I’m what?”
Stiles glances over her shoulder at him as she tugs her hoodie over her head. “Movie. You. Me. Maybe popcorn. Definitely Red Vines.” She pauses, thinking, and sits down beside him on the bed. “…And a hot dog. Definitely a hot dog.”
He makes a non-committal noise in his throat as he tosses the book to the floor, shifting closer to her on the bed. She can almost feel the intent, and she gives him an incredulous look. “I reek,” she says, “even to my own non-werewolf nose.”
In answer, his mouth latches onto her neck, nipping lightly, and she knows she’s new to this whole make out thing and well, the whole werewolf thing too, but she will never get used to Derek’s need to leave hickeys. They dot her skin now, and he always sits back, a slight smile on his lips, to revel in his work afterwards. It’s not even just then, either. All she has to do is move a certain way, clothes shifting, and his eyes are dilating black, his nostrils flaring. The next instant, he’s crowding her against the nearest wall, or down onto her bed, or dragging her onto his lap in his car or her jeep, and he’s kissing her until stars are shooting off like fireworks behind her eyelids. It’s all she can do to keep her dad from seeing the hickeys (or walking in on Derek in her room; somehow she thinks he would have been less freaked out when she was actively participating in harboring fugitive Derek), and she would really rather avoid that awkward conversation until she’s at least thirty, if she can’t hold out for never.
He turns her to face him, pulls her into his lap. His mouth is firm on hers, and then his tongue is licking inside, sucking. His hand slips into the back of her sweatpants, cupping her ass, and pulling her up to nestle against his erection. God she wants him. Wants all of him, and then maybe even more because part of her wonders if whatever-this-is is actually curable. If she will ever be able to share space with him and not want him – to kiss him, to fuck him, to love him. It’s what scares her about going all the way with him. They may not have been werewolves, but her parents were mated for all intents and purposes, and her father is still reeling. He will likely never regain his footing in a world without her mother, and fuck she’s not even seventeen yet.
“Down,” he murmurs, index finger grazing the top of Stiles’ ass, just where the cleft begins, making her all but vibrate.
Stiles tries to clear the fog, shaking her head even as the smell of him, his nearness makes her want to let him do anything he wants. “Derek –”
He lets out a growl and then the world spins on its axis, and the next thing she knows, he’s hovering above her on the bed. He moves slightly, lining them up, and – “Fuck, Stiles.” His breathing is ragged and Stiles wonders idly about passing out because it shouldn’t feel this good even with your clothes still on. Every nerve ending feels like its been exposed, and she can’t stop running her hands over him, slips them under his t-shirt, flattening her palms against the muscles in his back. She mutters, “Off,” and he does that one-handed pull boys do. She grabs him back down to her, loving all that heat pressed against her. He rolls his hips and she rolls hers right back. The lizard brain part of her knows that she would let him do anything to her, would take him inside her and let him fill her up with everything. She would let him permanently mark her, make her his, and she would do it unquestioningly. Maybe she says that last bit out loud, the marking, being his, because he pulls back slightly, his irises ringed with red, his fingers suddenly longer and clawed.
Then he’s gone. He leans against her bedroom door, chest still heaving, and she can’t help but notice the bulge in his jeans. “That isn’t going to happen, Stiles.”
That gets her attention, and she stares at him for a full minute before she can speak. Stiles curls up against the headboard, suddenly feeling naked and small. “What?” Tears ache in the back of her throat, momentarily stealing her voice, but she refuses to cry in front of him. She’s always feared she’s in this more than he is; that’s her life. It just hurts to have it confirmed. “What? I’m good enough to fuck but not to mate?”
“You’re sixteen!” Derek grimaces, his voice turning into an unmistakable growl, and she feels slightly hysterical laughter fizzling inside her chest at the hypocrisy of his words, especially considering what they’ve been doing lately. “Sex is one thing, but –”
“Well then let’s do this then.” Stiles yanks off her athletic bra. She juts out her jaw, and even as the anger goes from a simmer to roiling boil, she realizes she’s proving his point. She refuses to back down, and she sits up straighter, nipples tightening painfully in the chilly room. “Let’s fuck and maybe you’ll get it out of your system. Maybe I’ll get it out of mine. Then we can –”
Derek jerks her off the bed, bruising her arm, and he shoves her painfully into the wall. How has this become a theme in her life? She stares up at him, refusing to look away, and he growls again, his body so close to hers that she feels the rumble of it more than hears it.
“Do you think I like wanting you until my dick feels like it’s been in a perpetual fucking hard on for the last month? Do you think wanting to mark you is where this ends, Stiles? I want to take you and fill you up until you’re heavy with my pups, one after another.” He stops, jaw working, and his irises are completely red, as if the thought is more than his wolf can handle. “Christ, Stiles, I want everything.” It shouldn’t make her want to fuck him that much more, but it does, and his nostrils flare as he takes in her deepening arousal.
He looks down at her breasts, briefly cups her, and then he takes that last step, presses his chest to hers. She bites back a gasp. “But I…” He swallows, hard. “I love you too much to ask for something like that before you’ve even had a chance to live yet.”
Stiles can’t move, almost too stunned to breathe. She wraps her arms around him; pulling him closer and wishing she could pull him inside her and keep him safe. Sometimes it’s easy to forget all of the hell he’s been through in the last six years, that it has aged him and stunted him all at once. He holds onto her like she’s the only thing keeping him tethered anymore.
“I want you, sometimes so much – I want to be a selfish son of a bitch with you. I am a selfish son of a bitch. I smell you and it goes straight to my dick. ” He turns his face into her neck, and presses his nose into her skin, inhaling. “Stiles –”
“Stop talking. You’re killing the moment, dude,” she jokes, but her voice doesn’t sound like hers. It sounds about as shattered as she feels, and she grips him all the tighter. “I love you, Derek,” she whispers, and he lets out a shuddering breath, sagging into her embrace.
-
Allison is going to try Stiles on bow today (it had taken a full minute for Scott and Jackson to stop laughing after she first suggested it), and Lydia is going to check over the supplies Stiles procured on the internet (thank you, Canada) so they don’t have to rely on the chemistry lab at school anymore.
It’s kind of ridiculous considering, but Stiles can’t help but feel a little jealous of the other girls. They have these badass things they can do and Stiles feels left on the sidelines. The memory of Scott looking at her when he said he couldn’t protect anybody still makes her flush with embarrassment. Up until that point, she had thought they were a team. She watches as Lydia climbs out of Allison’s car, shaking out her long, red hair in that haughty way she’s been perfecting since sixth grade. Then Allison is out and easily leaps up onto the porch like the freaking elegant gazelle she is. Sometimes she hates the girls she’s been forced into being allies with because they’re walking, talking examples of everything Stiles lacks in the femininity department.
She watches as Allison wraps her arms around Scott, seemingly oblivious to the mood, the tension that persists between Stiles and Scott. Apparently, Stiles underestimated Scott’s multi-tasking ability. Usually as soon as Allison is within five feet of him, he’s a goner, a “Be back later!” sign hung, brain closed for the indeterminate future. It used to drive Stiles nuts, how even the mere thought of her left him incapable of focusing on anything else. Now, Stiles doesn’t have a morally superior leg to stand on. She would need at least five hands to count the number of times she’s found herself lost in thoughts of what she and Derek had just done or things they were going to do, toothbrush forgotten in her mouth, hair halfway brushed, and as much as she hates it, she loves thinking about him more.
-
The first arrow makes it all of a foot, but it’s the next one that effectively puts an end to Stiles’ fledgling career as an archer. Somehow the arrow flies like a rocket and at first she’s all but flailing with joy. Maybe she’s an archery savant because how cool would that be? But then the arrow goes right pass the tree she was aiming at and comes within a centimeter of Scott’s ass. The only thing that saves the moment is that Derek and Jackson are off in the woods, two fewer witnesses to her shame. (Jackson would never let her live it down.) It’s bad enough they’ll have to hear about it.
Stiles tosses down the bow, arms thrown up in the air in surrender. “Oh my GOD, I QUIT.” She stalks off to the house, looking every bit the two year old she’s acting like, and collapses onto the front steps, holding her knees to her chest.
“You’re looking at this all wrong, Stiles,” Allison hedges, taking a seat on the step below. “You’re so good at research.” She gives her that smile of hers that’s a mixture of pity and an honest-to-god desire to be helpful. Now it just makes Stiles want to kick her. Right smack dab in the middle of her shin. Until the sound of it cracking is the only thing that anyone can hear, and Jesus, she really may need to evaluate these violent tendencies.
Scott jogs over, and she eyes him warily as he approaches. He has this grin on his face that reminds her of when they were kids and he would brandish a DVD of the most recent horror movie their parents had forbidden them to see in the theater. (After Stiles realized the major loophole in that parenting mandate – they said theater, nothing about watching it in the privacy of one of their rooms – Scott had always made it his mission to rent it on new release day at the video store.) He holds out his hand to her and she takes it as he shakes his head, standing beside him. “I figured it out,” he announces, looping his arm around her shoulders and just like that they’re fine again. “You’re the brains of this operation, Stiles.”
Lydia cocks her head, her gaze assessing Stiles as if in a whole new light, and nods. “Totally makes sense.” She lets out a huff-groan. “I can’t believe Scott got there before me, actually.”
And so maybe she sort of floats the rest of the day because it’s nice to be the brains as opposed to the comic relief. Or the girl that ends up getting everyone killed.
-
Derek tumbles in through her window, landing on his back with the loudest thud, and she has maybe never been happier her father is at work. His leather jacket is coated with what can only be a mix of blood and mud (that alone stops her heart in her chest), but the thin Henley underneath is in tatters, revealing wide gashes in his flesh that are still in the process of healing. She stares a full minute, her mind immediately going to the new batch of hunters that have taken up with the Argents, and then she’s by his side, pulling his head into her lap. She can’t stop touching him, and he seems to need it, his hands reaching up for her, finding skin.
“Why did they break the truce?” she asks, using the hem of her sleep shirt to wipe a streak of blood from his cheek. She doesn’t want to even imagine the cut that was there to produce all that blood, her stomach twisting into a tighter knot.
“It wasn’t the Argents,” he finally manages. “A new pack.”
“What? They’re here…in Beacon Hills?” If she wasn’t already sitting, she thinks she may have fallen over at this revelation.
He groans into a sitting position, leaning heavily against the side of her bed, and she’s still so stunned it takes her a minute to catch up when he starts shrugging out of his clothes. Bruises riddle his entire torso, front and back, but his right side is the worst. It’s like the other werewolf took his claws, sunk them in, and ran them down until he met the waist of Derek’s jeans. She covers her mouth to muffle the gasp, which is stupid; Derek knows exactly what has been done to his body. She thought with Derek being Alpha, especially after seeing what Peter managed to do as top dog, this wouldn’t be an issue anymore. The idea of some other pack trying to move in was a worse case scenario; the hunters felt more threatening, even with the truce.
“Are Scott and Jackson okay?” she asks, taking his shirt and pressing it firmly against his side; he hisses. Even as she goes into survivor mode, her heart thumps wildly. Unless they’re cut in half, they should be fine and still she can’t help the abject fear curdling her stomach.
“They weren’t with me. I was over in Mount Shasta.”
“What were you doing there?” Stiles fists her hands to keep them from shaking. That’s where the doctor lives, the one who treated Derek’s mom so many years ago. “Why were you there alone?”
Derek looks at her, clearly picking up on the abrupt change in her tone, but he just shakes his head, focusing on the more important task of healing. “I was passing through. I was coming back from Sacramento.”
Stiles falls back on her butt, holding his shirt to her chest. “What’s going on, Derek?”
“Nothing. I had to pick up some special orders for the house.” He lets out a shuddering breath. “Stiles, I need you to come here.” He sounds so defeated, and something in his tone makes her move closer even as part of her can’t help but be repelled by the reality of that wound close up. This makes his arm wound look downright cuddly. He tugs her into his lap. Half of the bruises are already healed, but blood still oozes out of the side wound. “Will you take off your shirt?”
She rears back and gives him a look. “Are you serious right now?”
“It helps me if I can touch you. Skin to skin.” He raises a shoulder in a shrug. “You make me stronger just like Jackson and Scott do. Would you just do it?”
She pulls her shirt over her head, and despite everything, flushes because she’s not wearing a bra. Derek sucks in a breath, skimming a hand over her breasts as if he can’t possibly resist. The sudden, furious heat of him makes her shiver. She wants to ask why she helps him like Jackson and Scott do. Her mind goes back to Scott’s face when he found out, the question that he never finished, but part of her thinks maybe now isn’t the time to ask. Or maybe it’s simply that she doesn’t want to know. It may explain Scott’s overreaction, but for right now, she ignores it; she just wants closer, wants to touch him, and remind herself that he’s still here. Still hers.
rubykatewritingTitle: The Strong Scent of Evergreen
Pairing: Derek/Girl!Stiles
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Derek and Stiles start something new. "I am, you know," she whispers against his mouth, and he tilts his head in question. "Yours."
Spoilers/Warnings: Can be found here.
Notes: Title comes from the song "Passenger Seat" by Death Cab for Cutie.
Disclaimer: Not mine. So not mine. No harm intended.
Scott refuses to even acknowledge her. She hasn’t gone more than a couple of days without talking to him since she was five – except for that whole silent treatment she tried out after her father got hit with the car during the parent-teacher night and that lasted all of half a day when she was confronted with him face-to-face (she’s much better being a cold-hearted bitch when she can’t look into puppy-dog brown eyes) – but she’s still so pissed at him. He’s always had this weird sense of responsibility towards her, even when they were kids, and that has benefited her on more than one occasion. She would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge that having a fearless boy completely oblivious to real danger in your corner has it advantages. Now is different and his refusal to see that makes her want to throttle him, more so than usual anyway.
Allison decides to take matters into her own hands after the fourth day. She corners Stiles in the locker room after practice, and Stiles is so physically exhausted she can barely get off the bench let alone run away from Allison’s attempts at mediator. “This has to stop, Stiles.”
“That would require your boyfriend to stop being an immature asshole.” Stiles shrugs. “So.”
“Scott is just worried about you.” Allison’s face crinkles up in concern and she fiddles with the zipper on her jacket. “Derek is the Alpha…”
Stiles glares at her locker, wishing for enough strength to find Scott wherever he is, bring him back here, and slam his head repeatedly in the locker door. “I’m not being taken advantage of here, Allison. Maybe you should pass that along to your boyfriend.”
“You like him?” Allison sounds incredulous but also maybe a tiny bit curious, too. “You actually like Derek?”
“No, I’m doing this out of some weird sense of obligation to the pack,” Stiles bites out sarcastically and Allison blushes. “I know you love Scott, but seriously, he’s wrong about this. He’s wrong about a lot of things but oh my god is he the wrongest he’s ever wronged here.” Stiles can’t help but sigh as she grabs her towel and starts for the showers.
-
Since there’s no need to keep things secret anymore, Stiles gets it into her head that she wants to take Derek out, or him her. She just wants an agreed upon location and that they drive there together. She wants a movie date; she wants normalcy for once. It’s all well and good to ache for something – anything – to happen, but after the last few months she’s had, normal sounds so blissful she could almost cry.
She finds him lounging on her bed after school, reading of all things The Great Gatsby, which reminds her she still has to finish her essay, and she’s cranky and sweaty from soccer practice. Coach Lewis made them run suicides for twenty minutes after Alvarez and Murphy showed up late for the third time in a row; Stiles will never understand why she punishes the whole for the failures of the few. Unless it’s to encourage revenge, because that is certainly number one on Stiles’ to-do list now. “You’re taking me to a movie tonight,” she informs him, throwing her bags at the wall near her desk.
“I’m what?”
Stiles glances over her shoulder at him as she tugs her hoodie over her head. “Movie. You. Me. Maybe popcorn. Definitely Red Vines.” She pauses, thinking, and sits down beside him on the bed. “…And a hot dog. Definitely a hot dog.”
He makes a non-committal noise in his throat as he tosses the book to the floor, shifting closer to her on the bed. She can almost feel the intent, and she gives him an incredulous look. “I reek,” she says, “even to my own non-werewolf nose.”
In answer, his mouth latches onto her neck, nipping lightly, and she knows she’s new to this whole make out thing and well, the whole werewolf thing too, but she will never get used to Derek’s need to leave hickeys. They dot her skin now, and he always sits back, a slight smile on his lips, to revel in his work afterwards. It’s not even just then, either. All she has to do is move a certain way, clothes shifting, and his eyes are dilating black, his nostrils flaring. The next instant, he’s crowding her against the nearest wall, or down onto her bed, or dragging her onto his lap in his car or her jeep, and he’s kissing her until stars are shooting off like fireworks behind her eyelids. It’s all she can do to keep her dad from seeing the hickeys (or walking in on Derek in her room; somehow she thinks he would have been less freaked out when she was actively participating in harboring fugitive Derek), and she would really rather avoid that awkward conversation until she’s at least thirty, if she can’t hold out for never.
He turns her to face him, pulls her into his lap. His mouth is firm on hers, and then his tongue is licking inside, sucking. His hand slips into the back of her sweatpants, cupping her ass, and pulling her up to nestle against his erection. God she wants him. Wants all of him, and then maybe even more because part of her wonders if whatever-this-is is actually curable. If she will ever be able to share space with him and not want him – to kiss him, to fuck him, to love him. It’s what scares her about going all the way with him. They may not have been werewolves, but her parents were mated for all intents and purposes, and her father is still reeling. He will likely never regain his footing in a world without her mother, and fuck she’s not even seventeen yet.
“Down,” he murmurs, index finger grazing the top of Stiles’ ass, just where the cleft begins, making her all but vibrate.
Stiles tries to clear the fog, shaking her head even as the smell of him, his nearness makes her want to let him do anything he wants. “Derek –”
He lets out a growl and then the world spins on its axis, and the next thing she knows, he’s hovering above her on the bed. He moves slightly, lining them up, and – “Fuck, Stiles.” His breathing is ragged and Stiles wonders idly about passing out because it shouldn’t feel this good even with your clothes still on. Every nerve ending feels like its been exposed, and she can’t stop running her hands over him, slips them under his t-shirt, flattening her palms against the muscles in his back. She mutters, “Off,” and he does that one-handed pull boys do. She grabs him back down to her, loving all that heat pressed against her. He rolls his hips and she rolls hers right back. The lizard brain part of her knows that she would let him do anything to her, would take him inside her and let him fill her up with everything. She would let him permanently mark her, make her his, and she would do it unquestioningly. Maybe she says that last bit out loud, the marking, being his, because he pulls back slightly, his irises ringed with red, his fingers suddenly longer and clawed.
Then he’s gone. He leans against her bedroom door, chest still heaving, and she can’t help but notice the bulge in his jeans. “That isn’t going to happen, Stiles.”
That gets her attention, and she stares at him for a full minute before she can speak. Stiles curls up against the headboard, suddenly feeling naked and small. “What?” Tears ache in the back of her throat, momentarily stealing her voice, but she refuses to cry in front of him. She’s always feared she’s in this more than he is; that’s her life. It just hurts to have it confirmed. “What? I’m good enough to fuck but not to mate?”
“You’re sixteen!” Derek grimaces, his voice turning into an unmistakable growl, and she feels slightly hysterical laughter fizzling inside her chest at the hypocrisy of his words, especially considering what they’ve been doing lately. “Sex is one thing, but –”
“Well then let’s do this then.” Stiles yanks off her athletic bra. She juts out her jaw, and even as the anger goes from a simmer to roiling boil, she realizes she’s proving his point. She refuses to back down, and she sits up straighter, nipples tightening painfully in the chilly room. “Let’s fuck and maybe you’ll get it out of your system. Maybe I’ll get it out of mine. Then we can –”
Derek jerks her off the bed, bruising her arm, and he shoves her painfully into the wall. How has this become a theme in her life? She stares up at him, refusing to look away, and he growls again, his body so close to hers that she feels the rumble of it more than hears it.
“Do you think I like wanting you until my dick feels like it’s been in a perpetual fucking hard on for the last month? Do you think wanting to mark you is where this ends, Stiles? I want to take you and fill you up until you’re heavy with my pups, one after another.” He stops, jaw working, and his irises are completely red, as if the thought is more than his wolf can handle. “Christ, Stiles, I want everything.” It shouldn’t make her want to fuck him that much more, but it does, and his nostrils flare as he takes in her deepening arousal.
He looks down at her breasts, briefly cups her, and then he takes that last step, presses his chest to hers. She bites back a gasp. “But I…” He swallows, hard. “I love you too much to ask for something like that before you’ve even had a chance to live yet.”
Stiles can’t move, almost too stunned to breathe. She wraps her arms around him; pulling him closer and wishing she could pull him inside her and keep him safe. Sometimes it’s easy to forget all of the hell he’s been through in the last six years, that it has aged him and stunted him all at once. He holds onto her like she’s the only thing keeping him tethered anymore.
“I want you, sometimes so much – I want to be a selfish son of a bitch with you. I am a selfish son of a bitch. I smell you and it goes straight to my dick. ” He turns his face into her neck, and presses his nose into her skin, inhaling. “Stiles –”
“Stop talking. You’re killing the moment, dude,” she jokes, but her voice doesn’t sound like hers. It sounds about as shattered as she feels, and she grips him all the tighter. “I love you, Derek,” she whispers, and he lets out a shuddering breath, sagging into her embrace.
-
Allison is going to try Stiles on bow today (it had taken a full minute for Scott and Jackson to stop laughing after she first suggested it), and Lydia is going to check over the supplies Stiles procured on the internet (thank you, Canada) so they don’t have to rely on the chemistry lab at school anymore.
It’s kind of ridiculous considering, but Stiles can’t help but feel a little jealous of the other girls. They have these badass things they can do and Stiles feels left on the sidelines. The memory of Scott looking at her when he said he couldn’t protect anybody still makes her flush with embarrassment. Up until that point, she had thought they were a team. She watches as Lydia climbs out of Allison’s car, shaking out her long, red hair in that haughty way she’s been perfecting since sixth grade. Then Allison is out and easily leaps up onto the porch like the freaking elegant gazelle she is. Sometimes she hates the girls she’s been forced into being allies with because they’re walking, talking examples of everything Stiles lacks in the femininity department.
She watches as Allison wraps her arms around Scott, seemingly oblivious to the mood, the tension that persists between Stiles and Scott. Apparently, Stiles underestimated Scott’s multi-tasking ability. Usually as soon as Allison is within five feet of him, he’s a goner, a “Be back later!” sign hung, brain closed for the indeterminate future. It used to drive Stiles nuts, how even the mere thought of her left him incapable of focusing on anything else. Now, Stiles doesn’t have a morally superior leg to stand on. She would need at least five hands to count the number of times she’s found herself lost in thoughts of what she and Derek had just done or things they were going to do, toothbrush forgotten in her mouth, hair halfway brushed, and as much as she hates it, she loves thinking about him more.
-
The first arrow makes it all of a foot, but it’s the next one that effectively puts an end to Stiles’ fledgling career as an archer. Somehow the arrow flies like a rocket and at first she’s all but flailing with joy. Maybe she’s an archery savant because how cool would that be? But then the arrow goes right pass the tree she was aiming at and comes within a centimeter of Scott’s ass. The only thing that saves the moment is that Derek and Jackson are off in the woods, two fewer witnesses to her shame. (Jackson would never let her live it down.) It’s bad enough they’ll have to hear about it.
Stiles tosses down the bow, arms thrown up in the air in surrender. “Oh my GOD, I QUIT.” She stalks off to the house, looking every bit the two year old she’s acting like, and collapses onto the front steps, holding her knees to her chest.
“You’re looking at this all wrong, Stiles,” Allison hedges, taking a seat on the step below. “You’re so good at research.” She gives her that smile of hers that’s a mixture of pity and an honest-to-god desire to be helpful. Now it just makes Stiles want to kick her. Right smack dab in the middle of her shin. Until the sound of it cracking is the only thing that anyone can hear, and Jesus, she really may need to evaluate these violent tendencies.
Scott jogs over, and she eyes him warily as he approaches. He has this grin on his face that reminds her of when they were kids and he would brandish a DVD of the most recent horror movie their parents had forbidden them to see in the theater. (After Stiles realized the major loophole in that parenting mandate – they said theater, nothing about watching it in the privacy of one of their rooms – Scott had always made it his mission to rent it on new release day at the video store.) He holds out his hand to her and she takes it as he shakes his head, standing beside him. “I figured it out,” he announces, looping his arm around her shoulders and just like that they’re fine again. “You’re the brains of this operation, Stiles.”
Lydia cocks her head, her gaze assessing Stiles as if in a whole new light, and nods. “Totally makes sense.” She lets out a huff-groan. “I can’t believe Scott got there before me, actually.”
And so maybe she sort of floats the rest of the day because it’s nice to be the brains as opposed to the comic relief. Or the girl that ends up getting everyone killed.
-
Derek tumbles in through her window, landing on his back with the loudest thud, and she has maybe never been happier her father is at work. His leather jacket is coated with what can only be a mix of blood and mud (that alone stops her heart in her chest), but the thin Henley underneath is in tatters, revealing wide gashes in his flesh that are still in the process of healing. She stares a full minute, her mind immediately going to the new batch of hunters that have taken up with the Argents, and then she’s by his side, pulling his head into her lap. She can’t stop touching him, and he seems to need it, his hands reaching up for her, finding skin.
“Why did they break the truce?” she asks, using the hem of her sleep shirt to wipe a streak of blood from his cheek. She doesn’t want to even imagine the cut that was there to produce all that blood, her stomach twisting into a tighter knot.
“It wasn’t the Argents,” he finally manages. “A new pack.”
“What? They’re here…in Beacon Hills?” If she wasn’t already sitting, she thinks she may have fallen over at this revelation.
He groans into a sitting position, leaning heavily against the side of her bed, and she’s still so stunned it takes her a minute to catch up when he starts shrugging out of his clothes. Bruises riddle his entire torso, front and back, but his right side is the worst. It’s like the other werewolf took his claws, sunk them in, and ran them down until he met the waist of Derek’s jeans. She covers her mouth to muffle the gasp, which is stupid; Derek knows exactly what has been done to his body. She thought with Derek being Alpha, especially after seeing what Peter managed to do as top dog, this wouldn’t be an issue anymore. The idea of some other pack trying to move in was a worse case scenario; the hunters felt more threatening, even with the truce.
“Are Scott and Jackson okay?” she asks, taking his shirt and pressing it firmly against his side; he hisses. Even as she goes into survivor mode, her heart thumps wildly. Unless they’re cut in half, they should be fine and still she can’t help the abject fear curdling her stomach.
“They weren’t with me. I was over in Mount Shasta.”
“What were you doing there?” Stiles fists her hands to keep them from shaking. That’s where the doctor lives, the one who treated Derek’s mom so many years ago. “Why were you there alone?”
Derek looks at her, clearly picking up on the abrupt change in her tone, but he just shakes his head, focusing on the more important task of healing. “I was passing through. I was coming back from Sacramento.”
Stiles falls back on her butt, holding his shirt to her chest. “What’s going on, Derek?”
“Nothing. I had to pick up some special orders for the house.” He lets out a shuddering breath. “Stiles, I need you to come here.” He sounds so defeated, and something in his tone makes her move closer even as part of her can’t help but be repelled by the reality of that wound close up. This makes his arm wound look downright cuddly. He tugs her into his lap. Half of the bruises are already healed, but blood still oozes out of the side wound. “Will you take off your shirt?”
She rears back and gives him a look. “Are you serious right now?”
“It helps me if I can touch you. Skin to skin.” He raises a shoulder in a shrug. “You make me stronger just like Jackson and Scott do. Would you just do it?”
She pulls her shirt over her head, and despite everything, flushes because she’s not wearing a bra. Derek sucks in a breath, skimming a hand over her breasts as if he can’t possibly resist. The sudden, furious heat of him makes her shiver. She wants to ask why she helps him like Jackson and Scott do. Her mind goes back to Scott’s face when he found out, the question that he never finished, but part of her thinks maybe now isn’t the time to ask. Or maybe it’s simply that she doesn’t want to know. It may explain Scott’s overreaction, but for right now, she ignores it; she just wants closer, wants to touch him, and remind herself that he’s still here. Still hers.